5 ms·

V8 benchmark run against ActionScript in a wide amount of browsers/FlashPlayerss

47 points by false 15y ago

jjm 15y ago
I think the site is down. Google text only cache here: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Np7ljkBgJloJ:iq12.com/blog/as3-benchmark/+iq12.com+benchmark&hl=en&gl=us&strip=1 http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Np7ljkB... Update (chart): http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/819/chartb.jpg/ http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/819/chartb.jpg/ Best i could do from online caches, hope this site comes back cause I'd like to see a bigger chart.
- jannes 15y ago
  I think there used to be some diagrams, so the text-only version might not be the whole picture. Unfortunately that's all we can get right now.
  - cubicle67 15y ago
    yes, a lot of the information was in the graphs graph information, paraphrased from memory: actionscript comes along, performance bumps up slightly every few years. all browsers start below actionscript, but over time they surpass it. Average performance of different js versions has climbed sharply over time, whilst performance of actionscript has increased only slightly
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
arthur_debert 15y ago
The irony of it is that Adobe took AS2 (wich was ECMAScript) and turned it into a Javesque language. Not only javascript has blossomed, but performance was always coupled to the static nature of AS3. In short: they moved the language to the opposite direction of where most people are going, and also ended up with a slower statically typed language.
- saucetenuto 15y ago
  In fairness, Adobe would do a lot better if they had the same level of compiler talent behind AS3 that V8 has. There's nothing fundamental about AS3 that makes it any harder to optimize than Javascript, and the optional static types should only help.
- ken_railey 15y ago
  The situation is not quite so cut and dry, I think. AS3 was supposedly intended to be an implementation of ECMAScript 4, which was derailed by the (ECMAScript 3.1) Harmony project. Also, I believe the Tamarin AS3 compiler used by Adobe is a collaboration with Mozilla, and both the Adobe Flash Player and Mozilla TraceMonkey engine use the same JIT compiler.
  - strmpnk 15y ago
    I believe they use the assembler but not the whole tracer. I think the modifications were too heavy so it was pretty much replaced. I could be wrong though, I can't find the reference.
- whatever_dude 15y ago
  AS3 is still ECMAScript, just a newer version of it. I do agree they're being left behind in optimization, after leading the pack for a while. Thankfully they're aware of it and they're working on it. Here's something that explains some of the optimizations they're doing to the player: http://arno.org/arnotify/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Flash-Camp-Brasil.small_.pdf http://arno.org/arnotify/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Flash-Ca... It's more about the multi-processor support (e.g network loading and some rendering on a separate thread) but it does talk a bit about the JITing and GC changes and whatnot.
  - strmpnk 15y ago
    A version of ECMAScript which never really happened. The planning for v4 was pretty much a derailed project.
whatever_dude 15y ago
And still, the other (rendering) benchmarks where Flash generally leads got no comments and no upvotes. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2649759 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2649759 Seriously Hacker News.
- MetaMan 15y ago
  Thanks for the link. Yes is it sad that many (most?) developers are only paying attention to the headline CPU benchmarks rather than the GUImark 3 benchmark which for me is much closer to real world apps. The GUImark benchmark tests clearly show that while Flash video on current mobile devices is not quite as good as HTML5 (because of Flash's lack of support for Video Hardware acceleration - which apparently is fixed with Flash 10.3?), for Bitmap and vector rendering Flash still has a X2 performance advantage.

47 points by false 15y ago

jjm 15y ago

I think the site is down. Google text only cache here: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Np7ljkBgJloJ:iq12.com/blog/as3-benchmark/+iq12.com+benchmark&hl=en&gl=us&strip=1 http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Np7ljkB... Update (chart): http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/819/chartb.jpg/ http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/819/chartb.jpg/ Best i could do from online caches, hope this site comes back cause I'd like to see a bigger chart.

jannes 15y ago
I think there used to be some diagrams, so the text-only version might not be the whole picture. Unfortunately that's all we can get right now.
- cubicle67 15y ago
  yes, a lot of the information was in the graphs graph information, paraphrased from memory: actionscript comes along, performance bumps up slightly every few years. all browsers start below actionscript, but over time they surpass it. Average performance of different js versions has climbed sharply over time, whilst performance of actionscript has increased only slightly

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

arthur_debert 15y ago

The irony of it is that Adobe took AS2 (wich was ECMAScript) and turned it into a Javesque language. Not only javascript has blossomed, but performance was always coupled to the static nature of AS3. In short: they moved the language to the opposite direction of where most people are going, and also ended up with a slower statically typed language.

saucetenuto 15y ago
In fairness, Adobe would do a lot better if they had the same level of compiler talent behind AS3 that V8 has. There's nothing fundamental about AS3 that makes it any harder to optimize than Javascript, and the optional static types should only help.
ken_railey 15y ago
The situation is not quite so cut and dry, I think. AS3 was supposedly intended to be an implementation of ECMAScript 4, which was derailed by the (ECMAScript 3.1) Harmony project. Also, I believe the Tamarin AS3 compiler used by Adobe is a collaboration with Mozilla, and both the Adobe Flash Player and Mozilla TraceMonkey engine use the same JIT compiler.
- strmpnk 15y ago
  I believe they use the assembler but not the whole tracer. I think the modifications were too heavy so it was pretty much replaced. I could be wrong though, I can't find the reference.
whatever_dude 15y ago
AS3 is still ECMAScript, just a newer version of it. I do agree they're being left behind in optimization, after leading the pack for a while. Thankfully they're aware of it and they're working on it. Here's something that explains some of the optimizations they're doing to the player: http://arno.org/arnotify/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Flash-Camp-Brasil.small_.pdf http://arno.org/arnotify/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Flash-Ca... It's more about the multi-processor support (e.g network loading and some rendering on a separate thread) but it does talk a bit about the JITing and GC changes and whatnot.
- strmpnk 15y ago
  A version of ECMAScript which never really happened. The planning for v4 was pretty much a derailed project.

whatever_dude 15y ago

And still, the other (rendering) benchmarks where Flash generally leads got no comments and no upvotes. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2649759 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2649759 Seriously Hacker News.

MetaMan 15y ago
Thanks for the link. Yes is it sad that many (most?) developers are only paying attention to the headline CPU benchmarks rather than the GUImark 3 benchmark which for me is much closer to real world apps. The GUImark benchmark tests clearly show that while Flash video on current mobile devices is not quite as good as HTML5 (because of Flash's lack of support for Video Hardware acceleration - which apparently is fixed with Flash 10.3?), for Bitmap and vector rendering Flash still has a X2 performance advantage.